"The audience--a crowded one--is getting impatient," Bailey went on. "We've got to begin somehow. The other side have a speaker whom they can put on, but we--" "Go on yourself, Bailey," said Mrs. Mason. "You'll have to. We can fill up the time somehow until Gertrude comes." After a hurried consultation with the representatives from Allingham's committee, the meeting was opened and the speaking began. But although those who addressed the audience were eloquent enough, they were unprepared, and moreover, were conscious that their listeners were keeping one eye upon the door; in short, everybody present desired only to hear the two appointed speakers; so that the affair was most perfunctory. The minutes grew into hours, and these did not arrive. Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Bateman, even Mary Snow, were sent out to the platform to represent the woman's side, and although they were well received, the meeting broke up at eleven o'clock with a distinct sense of disappointment, not to say failure. The audience dispersed with but one question: "Where are they? and why have they not come?" A little after two, Gertrude called up Mrs. Bateman and told her of the events which had transpired since she had started out for the joint debate; but it was too late to send explanations to any other member of the committee. "Are you going to let it get into the newspapers?" asked Mrs. Bateman. "Not I," said Gertrude. "Think what a miserable sensation it would make." "Then I must call up Allingham's house and ask them to suppress it," answered Mrs. Bateman. "But what excuse can we make? Something must be said in explanation." "I don't know," said Gertrude wearily. "I leave that to you and Judge Bateman. I do not want it to get into the newspapers." "Very well; then I will call up the Allingham's" responded Mrs. Bateman. Which she did, and found that Mrs. Allingham was horror-stricken at the bare suggestion that the kidnaping of her son should be written up for the press. "He is asleep," she said, "and has been since the doctor put on his last bit of plaster; but as soon as he wakens I will ask him what I shall tell you to say. Anyhow, we will keep it out of the papers, if possible." But all the same the next morning the story was featured in every journal in town, with more or less display according to the style of each individual paper. Naturally, the more conservative of them strove to tell the story correctly and insinuated that the Burke party were behind the "contemptible trick;" but the sheet which upheld the "City Hall crowd," as all Roma termed its municipal authorities, gave a most sensational account, telling it with a flippant and gleeful inaccuracy which spoke volumes for the accomplishments of modern yellow journalism. It headed its article thus: "CANDIDATES IN COLLISION"